Finagle's Law Strikes Again (Tally!)

[Katie]

It had been a pretty good trip. They'd headed up to Altas Verde to view the residual energies from the wars. It been definitely worth the months spent on the road (even magic couldn't make them go that fast on the ground; they didn't have the coin or the licenses to fly either to or from). The ghosts--that was the word the students had taken to using, because it was a lot shorter than "residue from combative spellwork"--were beautiful, if you slipped into the sight. It was what Aisha imagined the northern lights her geography books talked about must be like, shimmering curtains of color laid over everything. Dangerous, of course. Her eyebrows had been temporarily singed off, again. Rhoda hadn't meant to, but it was one of the problems with being a fire mage.

There had been a couple of scares beyond the accidental explosion. Unavoidable hazard, what with all the bandits here and Connlaoth right next door and full of Mordecai and all. Plus there are the artifacts, one of which turned out to have a nasty and unforeseen side effect of eating pieces the hill it was inside whenever someone went near it. No bandits, though. Probably because of the guards they'd hired and the fact everybody but the guards and Professor Kilcher's assistant Tamara were mages was putting them off.

Which was pretty good. Combat magic wasn't...well, Aisha didn't like it. She didn't know why, it just sort of left a bad taste in her mouth. She preferred helping people over hurting them. Keep her on the defensive any day.

They were somewhere around halfway between one village and the next when they stopped for lunch. It was Aisha's and Rhoda's turn to hand out the food today. And it was because Aisha was bent over the bag with the cooling spells on it that the arrow thunked into the wagon instead of her head--shock-and-awe tactic, she'd realize later, but right then she was too shocked to do anything except whip around. Another arrow hit a guard in the throat. Rhoda screamed. Somebody swore. Aisha flung herself flat and rolled underneath the wagon. She had her waterskin, which was half full, so at least she was...sort of armed? Vaguely? She didn't have enough water to really be much use against arrows. Or more than one person.

Oh, Kia damn it. Why wasn't Professor Kilcher doing anything?

[Tally]

(OOC:  Thank you for being patient with me!  I had some major health issues pretty much all through the end of December.  I'm finally churning out posts on a daily basis again!!)

It was like a damned symphony, it was.  That right there?  The efficiency of it, the perfection of the execution?  Why, it was enough to humble any man.

Jackal's archers had half the guards down and well out of it before the first sword hissed out of its sheath.  At his signal, the rest of his men stalked forward on foot.  Steady, without effort to hide themselves.  Hunters assured of victory.

Jackal rode about the perimeter, where he could watch, where he could see the place he might be needed first.  There!  An older mage, casting.  Thinking to call down magic to end these brigands.  Jackal surged in.  His mordecai's field rolled forward with him, invisible, inescapable.  He enjoyed the singular pleasure of seeing the shocked look on the mage's face as his magic failed him.  Jackal charged into the fray, and each mage staggered and ceased their magic as his field swept over them, until, finally, the whole lot of them were like as lambs before lions.

Some idiot took the opportunity to club the older mage over the head with the butt of his dagger, and Jackal cursed.  "Hold, there!  We need them all hale and whole!"

[Katie]

Aisha wasn't able to stay under the wagon for very long. Someone grabbed her, and she screamed and kicked, but she didn't even manage to clip them (and wasn't very strong besides). They dragged her out from under it and up to her feet. And in the process, her waterskin spilled everywhere. 

Just because she didn't like combat magic didn't mean she didn't know any. There was a required basic course in it and everything. 

Aisha froze it and jerked away from the man holding her so she could aim the ice at his face. He ducked--and then the ice fell out of midair (at the same time as there was a thump, and the airy roaring sound of one of Rhoda's explosions cut off, and the snapping that meant Grabeth was panicking just stopped). She couldn't feel it, or the stream that a second before she'd known was only a quarter mile west, or the underground aquifer north of them, or the well three miles behind them, or anything. She couldn't even feel her own power. Her magic was gone. It was like someone had suddenly struck her blind or deaf. Kia help them all, the bandits had a Mordecai. 

She was reeling for a second or two, and that was long enough for the bandit man to shove her up against the wagon and pin her there by twisting her arm up behind her until her shoulder hurt. It was impersonal at least but she still couldn't get away and it was getting harder and harder to think because she was so afraid. She saw one of the other bandits hit Professor Kilcher on the head and felt anger bubbling in with the terror. Without his magic he was just an old man! The most he could do in the way of attacking anyone was to have palsy at them!

Then their leader spoke, and what he said made her blood go right cold. They weren't here to steal the goods, they were here to take slaves. The bandit man spun her around and cuffed her hands and then her neck. It itched badly enough that the manacles had to be iron (it didn't hurt her like it would Rhoda or the Professor, oh gods, would they be all right? Rhoda hyperventilated when she panicked, what if she couldn't breathe?)  

They were all sort of herded together, probably to keep them in a manageable range. Only some of them were manacled with iron. Her and the Professor and Grabeth and some others and yes, Rhoda, who was paler than usual and looked like she was going to cry. Aisha managed to get to her side, because it was something to concentrate on and that meant she could stop being scared at least for a little bit. She was breathing in short, shallow gasps. "It'll be alright," Aisha whispered. (She wanted her mother to come--but what could her mother do? Hemera was old and she could be anything she wanted but Aisha had never seen her hurt a fly.) "We'll be fine, we'll get away. Somehow. I promise." 

She didn't believe a word of what she was saying, but calming Rhoda down was all that kept her calm. 

[Tally]

Jackal circled the lot of them on his horse, making sure his men didn't get carried away, making sure none of the mages tried to put up some pitiful fight that might get them injured.  Taking down the guards and rounding up the prisoners, that was the easy part.  The hard part would be keeping them all in one piece for the rather long trek they were about to take.

The old man was bleeding from the head, but he'd be all right.  He was up and standing solid.  One of the girls looked about to faint.  Jackal spurred his horse over.

"You there."  Some other mage with curly pink hair had gone about comforting the other one, for all the good it was doing.  "See if you can't get her under control."

[Katie]

Aisha almost jumped clear out of her skin. She'd been so focused on Rhoda that she hadn't noticed--well, anything else, really. She shrank back from the man on the horse, tightening her grip on her friend.

Answer him. She had to answer him.

"I--I--" She took a deep breath. "--she's having a hard time breathing. It's the iron. She's just--she's, um, really sensitive, it's a, an inherited condition." Aisha swallowed. "Sir."